Day 95 – January 3, 2024: Isaiah 52-55 and Matthew 16

We can finally focus on Isaiah.  We find a series of chapters that we have read today that address very directly who Jesus is.  Now, remember, Isaiah was written hundreds of years before Jesus every walked upon the face of the earth.  But we find some very clear correlations between the prophecies of Isaiah and the work that Jesus did upon this earth.  Let’s look at a few.  Chapter 52:7 give us the John the Baptist Advent message with the feet of John being beautiful because he is bringing the good news of salvation that Jesus will bring.

Staring at vs.13 in the same chapter we see a description of who Jesus will be that then carries into the next chapter.  Pretty much all of 53 describes Jesus as one who “carried our diseases…wounded for our transgressions…by his bruises we are healed…he bore the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”  This is the work that Jesus did upon the earth and the work that he was able to do because he was not just the Son of God, as Peter confesses in our Matthew reading, but he was actually God himself.

Matthew 16 has that much debated conversation between Peter and Jesus where Jesus says that upon this rock the church has been established.  The rock is not Peter, although that is what the term rock literally is written as in Greek, petros, or Peter.  The rock is the fact that Jesus is the Messiah.  A lot here to look at because so much of it is so familiar.